Nielsen launched a Connected Partner Platform, opening the company’s CPG data to third-party analytics. The new product “enables Connected Partner companies and Nielsen clients to find each other and collaborate in an open ecosystem, freeing them from common barriers to connecting applications and data sets at scale,” the company said in a release. It’s been a busy year for Nielsen’s retail and CPG business, with a boosted stake in Nielsen Catalina Solutions and a revamped CPG data-sharing service. Nielsen clearly sees itself as ready to connect retailers and CPG brands, as well as offline and online touch points. And Nielsen isn’t the only one pushing a joint retail/CPG data strategy. Look at Criteo, which just bought HookLogic’s retail roster to pair with its own CPG customer base.

Familiar Story

Print newspaper revenues are going from bad to worse, “forcing some publishers to consider significant cost cuts and dramatic changes to their print and digital products,” reports The Wall Street Journal. We’ve seen a lot of cost-cutting and payroll trimming, but “many publishers slowly are abandoning low-rent display ads and pushing into potentially more lucrative ad offerings such as native ads, video ads and virtual reality. But so far, digital ad revenues aren’t growing fast enough to offset declines in print, particularly because ads in newspapers remain relatively expensive.” More.

The Metrics Gap

Advertisers have grown wary of the divide between front-end metrics (like CTR and viewability) and back-end metrics (like sales or subscriptions) as they try to tie digital more directly to business outcomes. They have legitimate reason for concern. One recent Kargo study found mobile interstitial ads get a lot of upfront attention (high viewability since the format takes over the screen) but very little follow-up interest. Another survey found users mostly uninterested in mobile formats adding interactive or user-engagement features. More at eMarketer.

Not In My House

Europe has it in for Silicon Valley. The European Commission is pursuing antitrust charges against Google relating to Android, advertising and shopping search. It hit Apple with millions in back taxes to be paid to Ireland, is investigating taxes and pricing on Amazon’s Kindle and is pushing for streaming services to provide more homegrown content in the region. Meanwhile, Western European countries are fighting Airbnb and Uber on labor protection grounds, while Germany investigates Facebook’s privacy policies. Most of these cases will play out in 2017, and will be much tougher for Silicon Valley to win if the UK (a sympathetic ear within the EU) decides to Brexit after all. More at Bloomberg.

When Push Comes To Shove

In a fragmented platform ecosystem, push notifications are an overt way to get users’ attention. Google’s Firebase Cloud Messaging API lets app developers send push notifications beyond Chrome to other browsers. Facebook launched a similar capability in its Analytics for Apps solution that lets developers create customizable push campaigns in-app. Desktop push notifications is a new strategy some media companies are embracing to regain control from the platforms that distribute their news. “It’s our feed,” said Anthony Sessa, VP of product and engineering at Mic. “It’s not a black box like the Facebook algorithm. We can drive the conversation the way we want at the time we want.” More at Digiday.